Catherine [Review]

I want to keep this review short and concise, because the point I want to make is that I love this amazingly unique game and I want everybody to realize that. There's been a serious lack of truly memorable games coming out of Japan recently, but my need for that J-style experience I've been a fan of for so long was immediately satisfied with Catherine. I knew I could rely on Atlus to produce a great game too, since the Persona series is similarly unique and great in its own stylish fashion. But enough about that...

Initially, Catherine may seem like a glorified puzzle game, and I had fears about that in the beginning too. However, what one will discover is that the puzzles are incredibly addictive, difficult, and deeply layered in technique. There is also a great sense of satisfaction in completing them, not only because of their hair-pulling difficulty, but because they almost serve as challenges to thwart in order to continue watching the story unfold. Speaking of which, the peculiar tale of Catherine is definitely the focal point of this game.

You play as Vincent Brooks, a 32 year old who's a bit lacking in the passion needed to commit to his long-term girlfriend Katherine. He's stuck in a rut; too hesitant about being chained down by marriage but unable to let go of his responsibilities. Life decides to kick Vincent in the ass, however, after a drunken night at the bar, when he finds himself in bed next to a blonde beauty who is ironically named Catherine. All this happens while Vincent experiences reoccurring nightmares where he is a sheep climbing a tower, which, rumor has it, is a curse on unfaithful men.

The game is separated by time periods, much like the Persona games. During the day, you'll watch the story unfold at places like Vincent's apartment, a cafe, and Vincent's work lavatory. Then at night, you'll be at the Stray Sheep, the local bar and hangout. This was personally my favorite part of the game. You will be able to walk around and converse with the bar patrons, which is important because listening to their problems can determine their fates. Dotdotdot. You can also drink your choice of alcoholic beverage (Rum & Cola for me), change the music on the jukebox, and play a mini-game called Rapunzel. Finally, you'll occasionally receive text messages from both Catherine's, which you can reply to with a set of pre-written sentences. 

This talk of texting brings us to an important aspect of the game: the morality meter. Basically, the things you say to people, the way to respond to texts, and the responses you give to important questions in the nightmares tilt the meter towards whichever alignment their associated with. If it's what a selfish cheater would say, the meter hand goes to pink. If it's a general goody-goody response, you'll get a point in blue. To sum it up in a semi-spoilerish fashion, you'll be determining which Catherine you want to end up with (pink is Catherine, blue is Katherine). It's a pretty simplistic system because the alignment of the choices you make are really obvious, and you can pretty much max the meter towards one side blind-folded. Despite this, responding questions from your own heart is undeniably fun and adds a nice role-playing touch to the game.

And finally, we come to nightmares stages and the puzzles themselves. As I mentioned earlier, they are layered in technique and require stressful amounts of thinking in order to solve, which is made more intense by the time pressure imposed by the scoring system. The hubub surrounding this game is true; the puzzles are freaking difficult. Even on easy mode, you'll often find yourself stumped. With bomb blocks, spike blocks, cracked blocks, random enemies, and slowly disappearing floors, there's no end to the possibilities in which this game can cause you to tear your hair out. But as I've said, you'll soon find yourself addicted, and the amazingly rewarding feeling you'll feel will be worth it. 

To top things off, Catherine looks and sounds great. I love the anime style cel-shaded graphics; they are very stylish and look amazing in HD. The character designs are great as well, especially the sexy Catherine. The visuals were honestly the reason I was drawn to this game in the first place. Every now and then, cutscenes will be replaced with animated scenes, which are just as good and move seamlessly with the game. I loved the funky soundtrack too; it has that familiar jazzy hip-hop feel that the Persona games had. 

The game may seem a bit short when completing your first playthrough, since it won't take you any more than 10 hours. Fortunately, there's plenty of replay value to be had. There are actually 8 endings in total, so it will take you two additional playthroughs to view them all. You can focus on the other Catherine, pay more attention to different people at the bar, and if the puzzles are frustrating you, note that you can skip them once you score a gold trophy on a specific level. I worked furiously to get gold on every level so my next playthroughs would be made easier for me. I clocked in 26 hours by the end of it, and I hadn't even completed the extra "Babel" levels you can unlock. That's showing you that there's actually quite a lot to this game, and there's plenty of fun to be had when the main story is over.

Catherine is definitely more for experienced gamers, who know how to appreciate a great story and a challenge. Casual gamers may be turned off by the sheer difficulty of some of the puzzles and the deep focus on plot, so that is a fair warning. But, if you're craving that peculiar air of uniqueness that Japanese games have been known for and you just plain love video games, you simply cannot overlook Catherine. 

[C.Jin's Overall Score: 8.5/10]

Trine [Review]

Trine is a side-scrolling platformer and a gorgeous one at that. If you can imagine a fairytale come to life with high resolution graphics, Trine is exactly that. Most of the environments are in the woodlands, complete with detailed forested backgrounds, glowing plant-filled foreground, and all manner of platforms and traps. The screenshots really don't do it justice; it really looks nice is what I'm trying to say. The gameplay is that of a platformer,but it is anything but simple. The physics are incredibly smooth and responsive, and you take advantage of this realistic environment with three different playable characters. They consist of a wizard, a thief, and a knight. You play as one at a time, and you magically switch between them by pressing the shoulder buttons.

Tekken 6 [Review]

I'm an avid player of fighting games. I usually prefer 2D fighters, but I have one exception to that preference: Tekken. I first bought Tekken 4 in 2004 and quickly fell into the gameplay, the characters, and the story. Despite Tekken 4 being the worst entry in the Tekken lineup, it was what started my love for Tekken. I still remember how much I anticipated the release of Tekken 5; I watched the trailer and intro at least five times a day for every day of the months preceding its release date. When I finally got it, I was addicted and played it continuously for the 4 years to come.

Finally, Tekken 6 was announced. Next-gen Tekken? Holy fucking crap. It came out in arcades in 2007, but the arcade scene here is so awful that I wasn't able to play it. Fortunately, I eventually ran into a Tekken 6 machine at an arcade and spent ten dollars on the thing, spending most of the time just being awe-struck at the graphics. My expectations were exceeded ten-fold.

Thus the whole cycle started over again; I spent days and days anticipating the release of Tekken 6 on consoles. It came out a few weeks ago; my friends and I managed to get a copy on the Xbox 360 (Which was a mistake, since the 360 controller is terrible for fighting games). Nonetheless, it was Tekken 6, and let me say: It.Is.Fucking.Brilliant.

Where to start...the graphics of course. Next gen graphics pushed to its limits. The characters and stages have never, EVER looked better. The details are so crisp that the fighters just look so impossibly ripped/cut. And besides the fighters, the stages are absolutely gorgeous. Due to Tekken 6's story about Jin Kazama starting wars across the globe, a lot of stages have some sort of war going on in the background. From burning villages to fighter planes zipping across the sky, it really adds some flavor to the overall feel.

Also, an important thing to note is that almost all the character animations have been re-done. No more attack animations that have been around since Tekken 2 (>_> Kazuya). They add a really new feel to the game and since the character stances have been re-done as well, it really makes for a worthy sequel. There is also an option to add motion blur. It makes motions look faster and smoother and overall prettier. Lastly, hit effects and sound effects have been improved to add even more hurt to the punch. You really feel the crunch behind a lot of heavy attacks. All in all, the presentation is incredible.

Gameplay has been improved for the better as well. It is mostly intact from Tekken 5 (since you're not supposed to fix what isn't broken), but some new things have been added. The combo system has been revamped with the "Bound". Each character now has several moves that can be used during a juggle to make their opponent bounce off the ground, creating a window for extending the combo. I like this a lot, it enables more creativity with juggles and definitely makes them deadlier than before.

The second gameplay enhancement is the Rage system. When a character's health is reduced to about 5%, they enter Rage mode, which is indicated by a burning red goal. In rage mode, a character can deal about 30% more damage. This allows for some epic comebacks and adds a ton of excitement to matches. It doesn't unbalance the game like I suspected several months back. Now the mentality has changed from "I'm screwed" to "Alright, the fight begins now". Of course, returning characters have plenty of new moves and several changed moves to add to their EXTENSIVE library of commands.

The character roster is the biggest we've seen in the Tekken series yet. Every character from Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection returns, and five characters join the playable character roster. Among them are Lars Alexandersson, Alisa Bosconovitch, Leo, Bob, Zafina, and Miguel. Each of them are incredibly unique and fit right into the Tekken crowd. Bob and Lars are especially powerful fighters. I've developed a liking for Alisa myself, her gameplay fits right with my playing style. Her moves are very unusual and are quite a spectacle to watch, as a lot of them involve her sprouting jets and flying around or pulling out saws from her arms to use as weapons.

There are two unplayable boss characters: NANCY-MI847J, a giant robot that appears in a bonus stage, and Azazel, the final boss. Azazel towers over the player like a dinosaur, and looks much like an reptilian Egyptian deity. It looks very impressive, but its also the most difficult final boss in the Tekken series. Its attacks are harder hitting and more difficult to avoid than Jinpachi's of Tekken 5. Still, it provides quite a challenge. A pointless but existent character update is Jack-6, who is essentially Jack-5 but a newer version.



Tekken 6 does not have a story mode. Instead, there is something new to replace that: Scenario Campaign. The gameplay in this mode is much like the Tekken Force mode in previous Tekken games. You can play with a second player or a CPU-controlled ally, and there are various weapons you can pick up during levels like gatling guns and flame throwers. The Scenario campaigns follows Lars and Alisa as they try to stop Jin and his destructive war. Each level has a boss character at the end, and the levels are chosen on a world map that is slowly unlocked as you beat each level. Although the main story follows Lars and Alisa, you can choose your own character to fight. It features some interesting cutscenes that advance the story well, but the overall feel of the scenario campaign seems lacking. Still, I can't really ask for much more.



Character prologues and epilogues are unlocked by playing a specific mode in the scenario campaign. The character stories in Tekken 4 and 5 were really interesting to me, but you won't find any of that in Tekken 6. Some of the endings are absolutely ridiculous and really have no point rather than some lackluster humor. This was the only aspect of the game I was really disappointed with. You see what I mean, see Law's ending below.

Other game modes are intact, like Arcade Mode, Survival, Versus, Team Battle, Ghost Battle, and Practice. The customization mode has been improved twenty-fold; there are literally dozens more options than there were in Tekken 5. Besides clothing, you can also change the character's hair in great detail to make them look almost completely different from their original design. An interesting gameplay aspect is the ability to use some of the items during a fight. For example, Bryan can fire his gatling gun item. This only acts as a taunt as the damage the items do are negligible and don't change the gameplay in any way. It's all in good fun though.

Tekken has always been an extremely sophisticated fighting game, and high level play is incredible to watch. Tekken 6 is definitely the best entry in the Tekken series yet, with its near-perfect gameplay, incredible graphics, and extensive modes. Its tempting to call the game flawless, but no game is flawless. Still, it is an incredible game and if you're a Tekken fan and you haven't played it yet, you're REALLY missing out.

There is also a PSP version coming out, and from what I can see from previews, it looks almost identical to the console versions with the exception of a few missing polygons. Its really impressive for a handheld game, and I'll make sure I get that too.

Now excuse me, I've got to go play some Tekken 6. Get ready for the next battle.

[C.Jin's Overall Score: 9.0]